


Ficlets

by temis



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Horror, M/M, POV Second Person, Sadness, deep water prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:29:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29593524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temis/pseuds/temis
Summary: Collection of small snippets of writing based on prompts from Tumblr
Kudos: 1





	1. Deep water prompt: If no soulmate appears to you before you reach adulthood, the woods will send one. They will wander out of the trees, confused, but happy to see you.

Everyone knows someone whose soulmate is forest-born in the village - Laura from the tailor shop with João, Allen the blacksmith has Lucas, your mother had your father. Some say the forest-born are different from the natural soulmates - made to fit, when no one else would.

The hisses that followed your father always: no personality, lives for her, a doll. You didn’t understand it when you were a child - what difference did it make? Dad was kind, and good. His green hands soft and velvet as he carried you to bed, even as his arms were strong and hard, their bark-like surface a comfort - safety.

You were always regretful that you didn’t get your father’s coloring, hair like autumn leaves, deep brown eyes, holding all the knowledge only the forest could give. 

As mother wasted away, you understood - her smile weak, skin dry and voice reedy in your ears. You were so afraid then. Because your father could not, would not move from her side. Not to work, or to get sun or care for you. 

Your mother tried. It probably speed-up her death, but she begged her forest-born husband (your father, daddy), implored him to go out, asked for promises, for a sign you wouldn’t be alone. In vain. Forest-born are soulmates the earth itself gives away - but they are made to love only one person alone. 

Your aunt took you in, along with your brood of cousins, all of them welcoming, all of them family, but not home.

When the day came and mother didn’t wake up, her chest immobile under her skin, it did not surprise you to see the husk of your father at her side still, bark made into iron, velvet skin brown and dry, eyes empty.

But it broke your heart.


	2. Deepwater prompt: Mother kept the wind chime in a cage, locked in a trunk in the closet, but I knew it would call us when the time came, as always.

It had done so before, its call heard through the leather and wood, escaping and haunting us, no matter how far or near, we would always be able to listen to it. Sometimes, we went gladly, when the world we were in was grey and drab, and only tears were left - the wind chime was an escape then, and even the high mocking notes of it couldn’t stop our relief - both from reality as well as guilt.

Most of the time, we tried to stay, to run away from the call, deafen us to its sound. In vain. We were transported to another, new world, wondering if we would ever go back, if father would still be looking for us. If we could ever rest somewhere. Sometimes we stayed for days, others months. The longest time was a year and one month. We had been happy for a while, believing we would finally stay. I was able to make friends there, and mother’s clothes were highly valued, as she sewed and embroidered so well - every woman from the village wanted to learn from her. I was friends with Luke, and mother got closer to a widower… 

But the wind chime laughed at our plans and we were running again.

I do not have my mother’s dexterity with a needle, her precision to cut and sew together cloth or skin, her calm voice and level-head when conflicts arise. Instead, I learnt the words and symbols of countries we go through, I love the stories and deeds, the tales of ancient machines and occult beings, of a library that existed outside the real world. mother apprentices me with mechanics, medics, scholars. My memory is good enough to recount tales, and I’m not the worst with numbers, so I learn. How to dismantle some of the relics we find, how to make them work again, which are dangerous, which are frivolous and could be taken apart, to reuse what we could. 

I grow up, and mother weakens. 

And still the wind chime calls us, warning that we will go, and transporting us far away.

Father will never give up, his guilt far too heavy, it seems.

And we can’t stop the call of the chime from ordering us away. Mother leaves messages, tells him to stop, because it does not help us. The fae magic is too strong, and too literal. If he does not stop, the chime will not either.

After the fifth time, when she had begged through letters left behind (and still, the wind chime calls), she fashions a wedding handfasting rope, a miniature one. And cuts it in pieces, leaving it with a final letter.

We ran away the first time when I was four, but now I can’t tell how many seasons have passed, or how long we have been travelling through the worlds. Long enough that mother is starting to bow to time, as I shoot up to my adult’s height.

It takes more and more time for the call to be upon us, and I appreciate it, even as I feel guilt for what it means. 


End file.
